Category Archives: 1985

1985

T.R. Pearson. A Short History of a Small Place. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.

The suicide of Miss Myra Angelique Pettigrew – an aristocratic woman who had lived alone for years with her pet monkey, Mr. Britches – is the story that begins this novel, but is by no means the only one told. Narrated by young Louis Benfield in a rambling, funny voice that has been compared to the narrative style of William Faulkner, this novel portrays the people of Neely, N.C., a fictional Piedmont town that may be based on Reidsville.

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1985, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pearson, T. R., Piedmont, Rockingham

Clyde Edgerton. Raney. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1985.

Raney Bell discovers, a little too late, that she didn’t know her fiancé Charles Shepherd as well as she thought. This novel is a chronicle of the first two years of their marriage as the innocent and cheerful Raney and the moderately worldly Charles quarrel about religion, race, sex, and family as they adjust to life together. Raney has a funny, distinctive, and unapologetically Southern narrative voice. The novel is set in the fictional eastern North Carolina town of Listre.

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1985, Coastal Plain, Edgerton, Clyde, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Fred Chappell. I Am One of You Forever. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.

Set in the North Carolina mountains in the 1940s, this novel-in-stories follows a boy named Jess through his daily life and encounters with his quirky family and neighbors. The book is a series of short pieces about the memorable characters Jess and his family encounter, and the land on which they live. Chappell is an award-winning poet and is noted for the lyricism he brings to his prose.

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1985, Chappell, Fred, Mountains